f 




,/// 




flmcrican pniiquartan ^attetij 



A KINDLIER LIGHT 



ON 



EARLY SPANISH RULE 
IN AMERICA 



. BY 
EDWARD HERBERT THOMPSON 



^tntvitan pnliijuarian ^txtititi 



A KINDLIER LIGHT 



ON 



EARLY SPANISH RULE 
IN AMERICA 



BY 
EDWARD HERBERT THOMPSON 



Reprinted fbom the Fbocbedingb of the American Antiquarian SociExr 
FOB October, 1911. 



WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A. 

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 

1911 



The Davis Pbess 
Worcester, Mass. 



UtM 






IN BMilANW 

JUL 14 l'^^* 




^bi 



A KINDLIER LIGHT ON EARLY SPANISH 
RULE IN AMERICA. 



A Yucatan friend once said to me: "You Americans 
are not just to the early Spanish Government of the 
Americas. You still see the Spaniard through the early 
English spectacles, and for Spaniards those old English 
lenses were ever out of focus, they could not give clear 
vision. " This friend was a travelled man, a student and 
a deep thinker. His remarks were always worthy of 
my attention, but I was especially struck with the possi- 
ble truth of this particular statement, and ever after- 
ward had it in mind when criticism more or less acrid 
was made of the early Spanish rule in the Americas. 

Looking at the matter calmly, impartially, as American 
Antiquarians should look at the facts of that period, 
ancient for the two nations named but prehistoric for 
ours, does not the statement of the Yucatan scholar 
strike in as a probable truth? Fundamental and proven 
facts are these, that at this period, 1550-81, England 
and Spain, when not in open warfare, were preying upon 
each other's commerce by a kind of more or less legahzed 
piracy. Such conditions are not conducive to either 
brotherly love or impartial judgment between nations. 
We, as loyal legatees of English thoughts and feelings, 
naturally held to what we rightly came by, and so to us 
this period of early Spanish control in the Americas was, 
on the part of the Spanish Government, one of an over- 
whelming greed for gold only equalled by that of the 
individual Spaniards, while its lust for conquest and 
power was only equalled by the lust for converts and 



power on the part of the Spanish priests who were 
accustomed to inflict unspeakable torments on the un- 
happy natives of the conquered provinces, and thus 
drive them with fear and trembling into the doors and 
before the altars of the most holy CathoUc Church. 

I have tried to put into this concrete form and few 
words the generally accepted belief as to the conduct 
of the Spanish Government in these early times of 
America. Some months ago, while searching the early 
records of Yucatan for data of an entirely different theme, 
I came upon certain facts so clearly proving the truth 
of my friend's statement that I felt impelled, almost 
as a duty, to try and take the matter up when the time 
was ripe and the opportunity at hand. This now seems 
to be the accepted time. 

Before going into detail I must, for the better under- 
standing of what is to follow, make clear the environ- 
ments of the times and circumstances. 

When the early Spaniards first sought to conquer the 
Peninsula of Yucatan, thej'' found themselves opposed 
by a dark-skinned people who fought in a disciplined 
way under able leaders. They defended their country 
so resolutely that the Spaniards were very glad to leave 
them alone for a while, and seek other fields to conquer 
where there was less fighting and more gold. Finally, 
these natives were overcome by the superior weapons 
and constantly increasing numbers of the invaders, 
and by the end of the year 1542 the whole region was 
practically a conquered province of Spain, with Francisco 
de Montejo as Adalantado and Captain General. Fran- 
cisco de Montejo — father, son and nephew, all Fran- 
ciscos and all Montejos — thought that, having conquered 
the country by the might of their own mailed fists, they 
and theirs could do as they willed so long as the royal 
tithes were paid. 

But this belief encountered the higher aims and 
humanitarian ideas of His Majesty in Spain and, per- 
sisted in, caused the valiant but somewhat obstinate and 
testy old warrior, Francisco de Montejo, father, sadly to 
meditate between bare walls and behind iron bars. Long 



after the brave old Adalantado had been gathered first 
to Spain and then to his fathers, the belief that "the 
Yucatecos" were for the Spaniards prevailed, and to 
a certain extent held good by reason of the system of 
repartimientos y encomiendas. 

This ancient system of repartimientos y encomiendas 
has been the subject of much misapprehension by modern 
historians and needs to be explained. When the 
people of the conquered provinces were apportioned out 
among the conquerors by the duly constituted authori- 
ties, the act was called that of the repartimientos y en- 
comiendas, the distribution of the charges. This act, 
while sometimes allied to, was by no means an integral 
part of, the granting of lands by Royal Cedula for no- 
torious services to the Crown, for while the royal 
grants were ad perpetuam, the rights given by the 
repartimientos were, to a certain extent temporal in 
their nature, rarely carrying over two lives or generations, 
and were, moreover, limited by certain wise restrictions. 
The natives upon these appointed lands were placed 
under the direct charge of the Conquistador to whom 
the land was apportioned, not as slaves, nor even as serv- 
ants, but rather as minors under the charge of a guardian 
or trustee. This was the encomienda, the charge, and 
made of the Conquistador who received them an 
encomendero. The encomendero was to look after the 
general welfare of the natives confided to his care, he 
was to look to their interests as a father looks to the 
interests of his children, admonishing, correcting, teach- 
ing. For this service each native head of family was 
required to furnish a certain equitable tithe of the pro- 
duce or the output of the region,^ and by so doing repay 
the encomendero for his care and wise supervision. This 
was the law, the intent of the King, and was never lost 
to sight by the Council of the Indias, who had the colo- 
nies under their supervision. 

Some of the encomenderos were in accord with the 
spirit and the letter of the law, but there were others 



> Hist, do Yucatan, Molino, p. 13 



V 



whose personal equations gave other results. They 
were always out for business, and that business was to 
make as much as possible, as quickly as possible, out of 
the resources at their command or under their control. 
Among these "resources" were too often counted the 
natives that were entrusted to their care and so, despite 
the law by which an Indian could not be made a slave, 
or held as a bond servant, abuses crept in, and thus the 
term. Encomendero came to be often considered as 
synonjTiious with that of slave owner or master. 

On the other hand, the Spanish friars, while they 
retained a goodly portion of human frailties, did carry 
beneath the rough cassocks of their orders the true desire 
to serve the Indian, not only in his spiritual but temporal 
needs as well, and this desire sometimes intemperately 
expressed, though it led them at times into very uncom- 
fortable paths, was, in the main, consistently carried 
out, much to the disgust of the rough and sturdy Span- 
ish pioneers. Contrary to the general belief, the law 
did not allow the disciplinary^ methods of the Inquisition 
to be applied to the Indian, and when Bishop De Landa, 
the author of the infamous burning of the Maya records, 
did in his fiery zeal attempt to apply some of the methods 
^ of the Holy Office to renegade natives, he barely escaped 
condign punishment himself. Priestly fanaticisms and 
worldly interests were ever battling, and between the 
two the Central Government was ever standing to pro- 
tect the defenceless Indian against the intemperate zeal 
of the one and the cupidity of the other. This for the 
times and the environments, now for the incidents. 

Some time during the early part of 1552, I could not 
^fix the date exactly, Thomas Lopez came to Yucatan 
with full power to correct abuses, and to see that the 
humanitarian ideas of His Majesty the King's decrees 
were duly enforced. Right well did he perform his task 
and carry out the true spirit of the law.^ He purged 
the local laws of grave errors that had crept in by cus- 
tom, establishing an equitable code of laws that should 

' Cartaa de Indias, p. 41. 



govern as between the encomenderos and their charges. 
He estabhshed a system of practical self-government 
by the village natives in such matters as affected merely 
local affairs. He established a compulsory school sys- 
tem so efficient that at the end of the 16th century there 
was hardly a village in Yucatan without its public school. 
He strictly forbade forcible conversion or baptism either 
of children or adult natives. They were to be carefully 
and faithfully instructed, and only when they themselves 
and of their own volition asked for baptism was it to 
be given them. The prohibition of the enslaving of the 
natives was made expressly severe, declaring that before 
Jesus Christ and the law no Indian could be a slave,' 
and that, while the Indian could, if he so desired, become 
a servant or day laborer, it must be a matter of mutual 
arrangement between employer and employee, by which 
the latter would receive his just compensation. This 
was the law and this was what Thomas Lopez upheld. 
To see that these laws affecting the status of the natives 
were upheld hereafter, he created a new ofl&ce, that of 
the Defensor of the Indians, whose duties were as 
indicated by the title. . Thomas Lopez was clearly a 
true and faithful servant of his King. 

The decade hand moves over the dial of the century. 
Carlos v., the Emperor of Castile and of the Indies, and 
Juana the Queen, have gone and Felipe II. is on the throne 
of Spain. Kings and Queens have passed away, but the 
ideals that they upheld have remained unchanged. The 
date is now that of 1581, at the time when Guillen de 
las Casas was Governor of Yucatan, and one Pedro 
Gomez, the Royal Treasurer of the Province. History 
has dealt with Guillen de las Casas in letters so large 
that he who runs may read,^ while the Royal Treasurer 
has been left in comparative obscurity. And yet, Pedro 
Gomez, Treasurer of His Majesty, Felipe II., in the Prov- 
ince of Yucatan, was a man of parts, a good steward 
looking keenly to the welfare of the royal income from 
his district. This the statistics indicate and his letters 



» Hist, do Yucatan, MoUno, p. 20. 
< Hist, do Yucatan, Motino, p. 180. 



8 

to his royal master show. The Spaniards of those days 
were more independent and democratic than we are 
usually willing to beheve, and some of their letters to 
their King, now on record in the archives, would surprise 
us even in these democratic days, but the letters of 
Pedro Gomez, Royal Treasurer in an humble Colonial 
province, surpass in their blunt directness all the others. 

I must explain now that which perhaps I should have 
stated before, that Yucatan is in great part arid, with- 
out either rivers or lakes on its limestone surface. Na- 
ture, who generally evens up things in her own quiet 
way, has ordained that in these modern days this arid 
portion of the Peninsula should be the section that gives 
prosperity to all the rest, for upon its rocky, sun-heated 
surface grows the Agave Sisalensis, from whose fleshy, 
thorn-pointed leaves is taken a fibre that gives an annual 
income of thirty million Mexican dollars to the people 
of the Peninsula. In the days of which this paper 
treats, the nascent possibilities of the fibre were as yet 
unknown. While the trials and privations of those who 
were trying to wrest a hving and a fortune from the 
ungrateful soil were such that at two different times 
large numbers of the colonists were on the point of mi- 
grating to more fertile colonies in other regions, provi- 
dential discoveries of valuable natural resources were 
made that aroused their hopes and made them dream of 
future prosperity, and thus kept them on the Peninsula. 
The first of these was the discovery of the dye wood, 
log wood, palo de tinto, while the second was the discovery 
of anil or indigo, furnishing indigo of a quality that was 
very much sought for in Spain and elsewhere. 

The first of these discoveries was that of the log wood 
and the results that flowed from its discovery and expor- 
tation surpassed all expectations. Prosperity was over 
the land and a goodly stream of much needed gold was 
flowing into the royal treasury therefrom, when suddenly 
came the royal decree forbidding the log wood cutters 
and exporters to use the Indians in transporting the log 
wood from the swampy tracts of the cuttings to the 
dry lands and the store houses. "My native vassals 



9 

are men and not beasts of burden, and shall not be put 
to do the work of beasts, " was the royal edict. 

A like edict was issued shortly after the discovery and 
the profitable exportation of the indigo, and then it was 
that the sturdy Pedro Gomez wrote the letter. I regret 
that I cannot at this distance from the original record 
give the exact wording of the text. But in it the worthy 
Treasurer ventured to ask the King if he knew what he 
was doing when he sent out the decree, reminding him 
of the fact the Yucatan was such an arid region that life 
there at the best was but a constant struggle, that many 
had already emigrated to other and more fertile regions, 
and that unless they could be allowed to cultivate and 
export the few articles that the land could profitably 
produce, the chances were that the whole colony would 
be depleted to the great loss of His Majesty's treasury 
income. 

In due time, and with passionless measured words, 
came back the royal answer, royally given: — ''It having 
come to the knowledge of His Majesty, the King, that 
the making of indigo is not only contrary to the health 
of his native subjects by the method of its making, but 
also by reason of the flies and other insects that breed 
in the putrefactions thereof, these native subjects of 
mine cannot work, neither can they eat nor sleep in com- 
fort by reason thereof. The Royal Treasury does not 
care to thrive upon those things that imperil the health 
and comfort of these, my subjects, who equal with you, 
Gentlemen of Spain, and are my constant care and 
thought. It is, therefore, hereby decreed that the work- 
ing of the indigo herb, as it is now undertaken by the 
hand labor of my native subjects, is prohibited under the 
law." 

Reduced to the last equation the result seems to be, — 
That the action and purpose of the early Spanish rule 
in the Americas was humane in spirit, high in ideal, and 
ever looking to the welfare of the defenceless natives. 
That such cruelties as are on record were the outcome 
of lawlessness and fanaticism and not the workings of 
the law. 



L] 

LI 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

015 828 562 9 






